"Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world." -Emma Goldman

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

seems to be the summer of sex talk*

Through a conversation about Dr. Richardson & Dr. Schuster's book Everything you NEVER wanted your kids to know about SEX (but were afraid they'd ask), my coworker and I got into a very long discussion about sex, power, and knowledge. Somewhere in the conversation we derived that knowledge may in fact be what holds us captive. Without knowledge, we're able to enjoy inherent and simple pleasures: food, shelter, sex. When knowledge increases so do more complex emotions: stress, anxiety, worry, doubt, fear, etc.

In fact, we decided that as a species, an orgasm is the most intrinsic and intense emotion we can experience. It carries with it huge amounts of power for humans to realize what we are each individually capable of. Through knowledge, and through the learned experience of sex being shameful and secretive, that power is negated and control centralized to an outside authority. Here is where discussion turned to Adam & Eve, original sin, and religion as a whole. From there it continued to spiral into sociology, philosophy, and literature.

The conundrum: without knowledge, would we even enjoy sex (and all the other intrinsic simple pleasures) in the same way?

The point of all of this is simple that I am loving my summer. I miss this kind of liberal arts discourse that used to occupy my life pre-med school. Oh, and that EVERYONE needs to read the above mentioned book. Especially all of you parents and future-parents. I promise that it will screw with your thoughts some and make you question everything you thought you knew/believed.

*One of my research papers I have been working on this summer is about adolescents and sex. I blame it, and the necessary lit review, for fueling a lot of the conversations I have been having this summer.

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About Me

I am a medical student in the South. I am also an observantly Jewish, type 1 diabetic, celiac, queer, strongly pro-choice activist. I am doing what I can to hold onto my ideals as I brave the chaos of medical education.